To all BRAC affected employees, head south and improve your life.
Another chance for Alabama to dispel nasty rumors, about what more and more already know..Alabama is a great place to live and work.
Huntsville is on the cutting edge of what these people do.
By PATRICIA C. McCARTER
Times Staff Writer
patriciacm@htimes.com
ARLINGTON, Va. - The complimentary luggage tags say it all.
"Pack your bags and come to Huntsville."
Of all the many souvenirs and door prizes awaiting Department of Defense workers at the please-consider-moving-to-the-Tennessee-Valley fair, the luggage tags seem the most symbolic of the message.
"We just want these people to know how much we want them to come be with us," said Huntsville's anti-litter guru Joy McKee.
McKee is one of several dozen envoys making the three-day trip to tout North Alabama and southern Tennessee to DoD workers whose jobs are moving to Redstone Arsenal through the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission.
The meetings are being held at the Sheraton National Hotel in Arlington, and defense workers will be bused in from their offices. There will be four meetings held over today and Wednesday.
Rows of displays that await 450 invited Washington, D.C.-area Missile Defense Agency (MDA) workers promote housing, schools and quality of life.
Mary Gwinnup is a BRAC transition coordinator with MDA in Arlington, Va. Her job isn't moving to Huntsville, but her job is to help defense workers move to Huntsville, if that's what they want. If they don't, then her office will help them find jobs elsewhere within the Defense Department.
"We want people to take their time, get all the information they can, and then make up their minds," Gwinnup said. "Don't make up your mind until you know what they have to offer."
Gwinnup believes that if the affected workers go to the fair, they'll give the move some serious thought. She mentioned some of the Alabama people she's met so far "and they're the nicest folks you could ever hope to meet."
"It's not that they're apprehensive about going to Alabama as much as it is that they don't want to go anywhere," Gwinnup said. "I worked for the Naval Air Systems Command in Crystal City (Va.) when it got moved to Maryland. People threw a fit about that change.
"People just don't like change. That's all there is to it. I was involved in three base closures, and people committed suicide over it. Change is just tough on some people."
Maybe so, but Stephen Perkins is excited about the chance he'll have to talk to people about a big change they'll have if they decide to move to the Tennessee Valley. He's the executive vice president of the Huntsville Area Board of Realtors and is armed with the pleasant details of buying a house within easy commuting distance of Redstone Arsenal.
A comparably sized house that would cost $250,000 in North Alabama would cost $700,000 in Northern Virginia, "and it would be 35 years old with few amenities."
Because housing costs have gone up 72 percent over the last three years in Northern Virginia, Perkins said many DoD workers could sell their homes, make a huge profit and then pay cash for a bigger, nicer, newer home in the Tennessee Valley - with no tax consequences.
He added that the lot-size average is more than double in the Huntsville area than Northern Virginia.
"These prices give families opportunities for financial stability that they can only dream of (in Northern Virginia)," Perkins said. "For those who choose to move, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance. That's exciting to me.
"It's a fun story to tell. It's a good story to tell. The only problem is making it real to them. The differential is so huge, how do you show it in a credible way? It is almost unbelievable how much more they'd get for their money."